Stay
by SassySnow1988
Summary: *7/24/11 edit* Post S1. The aftermath of the car bomb. Will Cameron survive? And if she does, what effect will it have had on her? How will John react? But more importantly, what'll happen between John and Cameron now that they're on the run? Jameron
1. Chapter One: When the Man Comes Around

**Stay**

**A/N: **Hi there! This is my first attempt at T:SCC fanfiction and I hope you enjoy it! Helpful hints: italics mean thoughts, bold means flashbacks, and bold stuff in all caps means it's on Cameron's menu screen. Reviews are crucial here people, if I don't get feedback on this thing, I can't guarantee any future updates.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own T:SCC, or any of the characters therein, they belong to James Cameron and Fox (last time I checked). I also don't own the lyrics to, or the songs themselves, "When the Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash or "Stay" by Shakespeare Sister (the YouTube vid by karenloveskarl to that song for John and Cameron is what inspired me to write this). Lastly, I don't own any of the products (Dr Pepper and Doritos for example) mentioned in this chapter or future chapters.

**Warning: **I began this fic BEFORE S2 began, so if you're looking for a fic where Cameron is all skitzo and trying to kill John, sorry but that's not gonna happen here! At least I don't think so… ;-P

**Chapter Rating: **Mature (Language, violence, gore, and the occasional dirty thought…hey there is a TEENAGE boy in this fic and a girl that looks like a supermodel walking around, why the hell wouldn't there be at least dirty THOUGHTS? -blush- Sorry… I had a lot of sugar today… Ahem, I'm gonna go now…)

**Written While Under the Influence of: **Johnny Cash-When the Man Comes Around, T2: Judgment Day (especially the part where "Uncle Bob" powers himself back up and pulls the pole out of his stomach…read and ye shall understand), and the YouTube vid by karenloveskarl "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles video/Stay" (song—Shakespeare Sister-Stay).

**Chapter One: When the Man Comes Around**

**And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts**

**And I looked and behold: a pale horse**

**And his name that sat on him was Death**

**And hell followed with him**

The explosion was deafening. A fireball climbed high into the mid-afternoon sky of the small residential neighborhood in Southern California. Thick black smoke billowed up and away from the burning remains of the vehicle, turning the bright blue sky a mottled gray. John Connor and his mother, Sarah, exchanged matching looks of rising panic, then realization dawned on the young man's handsome features. All the blood drained from his face, leaving his skin pallid and cold.

_Cameron was out there._

John was up off the desk chair and through his bedroom door in seconds, dodging his mother's desperate grab for his elbow along the way. He didn't even hear her cry his name as she chased after him into the living room. The front door slammed harshly in her face as he exited the house, preventing her from immediately following him outside.

He darted across the miniscule front yard toward the twisted hunk of flaming metal that until a moment ago had been his mother's Jeep. The sounds of multiple screeching car alarms that'd been triggered by the blast assaulted his ears, but he ignored them. His hands came up instinctively to protect his eyes from the smoke and heat of the flames licking across the warped hood of the automobile. The future leader of humanity moved ever closer to the fiery ruins, intent on finding the machine—the Terminator that a future version of himself sent back in time to protect him—that he called Cameron.

"CAMERON!" John shouted as he scanned the wreckage, becoming increasingly frustrated when he found no sign of her.

Sarah suddenly grabbed her son around the shoulders with one hand, the other toting her ubiquitous shotgun, and began hauling him backwards.

"No! Let me go! We have to help her!" John yelled, struggling against his mother's amazingly strong grip.

"John, you can't do anything for her! We have to go now!" Sarah began as Derek Reese, John's uncle, raced across the street and helped her pull him toward the house.

John fought back with increased vigor, managing to prevent both the adults from moving his lean, sixteen-year-old frame a single inch away from where he now stood.

"Damn it, John, she's a machine! That _thing _is not human!" Sarah growled with the effort of holding him back.

"CAMERON!" John screamed frantically as Derek wrapped one muscled arm around his nephew's waist and began forcibly dragging him across the front yard.

As though by command, the entire pile of burning metal abruptly shifted. The deformed cab of the Jeep burst outward as the passenger side door was kicked off its hinges with preternatural force. A black blur flung itself out onto the grass and rolled a few feet, dousing the flames from its body, before stopping right in front of the flabbergasted trio.

Cameron shoved herself up off the ground and into a standing position as tendrils of smoke curled off her body. Her beautiful porcelain-skinned face was smudged with soot in addition to the tiny cuts dotting both her cheeks and forehead, specks of blood and gleaming metal peeking out from underneath the torn flesh. Her clothes and knee-high boots had all been partially eaten away by the fire and were just barely hanging onto her petite form.

John's wide emerald green eyes took in the disheveled appearance of his robotic protector. Her right arm was badly burned, the fabric of her jacket that'd covered it was entirely burnt away, exposing the blistered red flesh of her shoulder and bicep as rivulets of blood traveled a topsy-turvy pathway down her arm to her hand. The bottom of the green tank top she wore was scorched all the up way to her bellybutton, but the pale taut skin of her stomach was obscured by the splotches of soot clinging to her flesh. Her left pant leg was torn from the top of her thigh all the way to her knee where she'd tucked the bottoms of the tight jeans into her black biker boots, which sported only a few tears and some small scorch marks.

Undulations of heat rippled across her form, distorting her features for an instant before a sudden breeze chased them away. The gust of wind brushed the girl's shoulder-length brown hair away from her face, revealing her captivating eyes, as well as more minor injuries to her neck and chest. Cameron's deep brown irises locked on John's, a strange emotion clouding the usually impassive stare she often fixed him with. Relief crashed over him in great waves to see her safe and mostly unharmed in front of him. A flash of cerulean blue lit up her eyes for an instant, but was gone just as quickly. The cyborg immediately stepped forward, then toppled face first onto the ground like a ton of bricks.

John's entire body jerked while he watched in horror as the invincible machine collapsed like a broken doll on the grass and did not move. The young man instantly shoved himself away from his mother and uncle then knelt beside Cameron on the ground.

It was only then that he noticed a large piece of metal shrapnel embedded in the middle of her back. The wide, blackened fragment of steel had punctured completely through her torso, and was visibly protruding a few inches out of her back as well as from her stomach. Dark red blood oozed out around the jagged edges of the charred metal then pooled in the small of her back, gradually soaking into the green fabric of her shirt.

Frowning, John grabbed one of her arms and pulled, only managing to barely lift the heavy limb off the ground. Grunting with the physical exertion, he glared up at the unmoving Sarah and Derek.

"Help me move her!" he commanded.

John was more than a little surprised at the fact that he'd just ordered his mother and uncle to do something, but now wasn't the time for tact. Sarah's icy green eyes bore into him, her expression unreadable, and for a moment he was absolutely certain she wasn't going to lift a finger to help Cameron in any way. But then to his amazement, she stepped forward and reached for the girl's other arm. Derek stood there, arms crossed over his chest, watching the two fruitlessly try to pick up the inactive machine.

"Derek! Get over here and take her legs!" John barked as he tried unsuccessfully to stand with Cameron's full weight balanced between him and his petite mother.

The time-displaced soldier merely raised one eyebrow at him as if to say "you have got to be kidding me" and remained rooted to the spot.

Sarah turned toward the man, fixed him with an angry glower and shouted, "A car just exploded in the middle of the street! The fire department's going to show up in a few minutes, and then the cops. I think they might notice that _you_ are an escaped felon and that _I'm_ a wanted fugitive by the FBI. We can't leave the Tin-Can here for them to find, otherwise we might as well hand her over to Skynet and say 'Best of luck you guys!' So get your ass over here right now and grab her damn legs!"

The two stared each other down for a long moment and John was almost tempted to run for cover as the one-on-one version of World War III began, but then Derek rolled his eyes and walked over to where they were crouched on the ground. He lifted Cameron's legs into his arms with a great sigh of effort, and with all three of them working in tandem, they managed to raise her body to where they could walk and carry her at the same time.

Seconds later they dropped Cameron's lifeless form onto the couch in the living room and stood there staring at her, panting exhaustedly from carrying the lithe body of a young girl with a skeleton made entirely out of metal alloy. Derek and Sarah had unceremoniously dumped her onto the ratty piece of furniture, leaving one limp arm hanging off the cushions with her fingertips skimming the dusty surface of the floor. The arm that John had been carrying her by was gently folded across her stomach, her hand resting just beneath the grisly exit wound of the shrapnel, while both of her legs were perched on the edge of the couch in a way that would've been excruciating for a normal individual—John was certain that Derek hadn't done that accidentally.

Her head was turned at an odd angle and wisps of dark brown hair were splayed across her cheeks. Those perpetually inquisitive eyes of hers were still open, but they were now glazed over and dull—utterly lifeless. The _thing___that lay on the couch before him wasn't Cameron anymore, it was an empty shell, completely devoid of the entity John had come to know as so much more than just a machine.

An involuntary shiver zigzagged up his spine at the thought.

"**She's a machine. She doesn't have a soul and she never will. You don't have to trust her, you can trust me." **

His own malicious words from just days earlier reverberated in his ears as he stared at her frozen form. Regardless of what he'd told Derek and his mother simply to shut up their paranoid conspiracy theories about Cameron being the actual creator of Skynet, John was unable to see her as only a machine. He'd been angry at them for constantly doubting her—and him for that matter—and when coupled with his conflicting emotions about Cameron at the time, the words had just spilled out. He knew even as he said it he didn't really think that about her himself, but maybe if he could convince Sarah and Derek that he did, he could somehow make himself believe it too.

"Why isn't she waking up?" John managed to choke out around deep gasps for air as he knelt beside his pretend sister's inert form. "It's been over 120 seconds, shouldn't she have rebooted by now?"

"We'll figure that out later. We need to get the hell outta here before the cops show up," Sarah stated in her usual steely voice.

Her cool, green-apple colored eyes were calm and calculating as she turned toward them, then handed out missions to her son and Derek in a way that'd make a drill sergeant proud.

"John, go grab everything we have that's even remotely associated with Skynet and pack it up. Derek, we need a car. A truck or SUV would be best, you've got five minutes to steal one and get back here. I'll get the weapons," Sarah stalked off in the direction of her bedroom the instant she finished giving orders without so much as a backward glance at the other two to see if they complied.

Derek immediately disappeared out the back door of the small house and sprinted off to a nearby subdivision. John didn't want to leave Cameron in the state she was in, but knew that if he wanted to help her they couldn't get caught. And to not get caught they needed to get away from this house as soon as possible. So he pushed himself to his feet and darted toward his bedroom. He tossed Vick's chip, Sarkissian's hard drive, his own laptop, and anything else he could think of that might help the police find them or hasten the arrival of Judgment Day into his backpack, then turned to his dresser. He shoved a few T-shirts, jeans, a gray hooded sweatshirt, some boxers and socks into the already overstuffed bag before racing out into the hall, struggling to close the two clasps of his backpack along the way.

He dropped his backpack beside the couch, spared a quick glance at Cameron's unmoving form, grimaced, then bolted back up the stairs to her bedroom. A part of him still wanted to stay with her, to do something to help her, but the dead expression on her face was really creeping him out. Those gorgeous chocolate brown eyes of hers just stared up at him, glassy and unfocused—it was too much like looking at a corpse. He did not like seeing _her_ that way. John knew it bothered him more than it should, but he just couldn't help it.

He burst into the cyborg's room seconds later, only momentarily stopping to stare at the bright pink walls and thinking that somewhere the god of irony was laughing himself silly, then set about rummaging through her own dresser to find some new clothes for her. He flung some long sleeved shirts—to accommodate for her burned arm—onto the bed behind him, followed by some T-shirts and pants, then yanked open the third drawer down. For a second he thought he'd walked into Victoria's Secret, then realized he'd just opened Cameron's underwear drawer.

The teenage boy stood staring slack-jawed at the assortment of lacy bras and panties in front of him, a scarlet blush creeping onto his face then traveling up to the tips of his ears at the knowledge of whom the undergarments belonged to. An image of Cameron obliviously walking down the hall in nothing but a bra and boy-shorts immediately came to mind. That vision was accompanied by another of Cameron without any clothes at all, a memory of when they'd traveled across time from 1999 to 2007 and their clothes had disintegrated along the way.

Shaking the dirty thoughts from his head and ordering his mind back out of the gutter, he reached in and grabbed a handful of soft fabric and chucked it onto the bed. He then jerked open her closet searching for her messenger bag. He found it in the corner of the nearly empty wardrobe and brusquely dumped its contents out on the floor. Two small textbooks and a spiral notebook spilled out first, followed by a thick calculus book that almost fell onto his foot in his haste to empty the bag as quickly as possible. John snagged a pair of shoes off the floor to replace her ruined boots then rammed everything he'd found into the small bag and ran back downstairs.

Sarah was already standing beside the front door, staring out a nearby window with her shotgun still firmly in hand, surveying for the authorities and Derek. A large black duffel bag lay on the floor a few feet away, presumably filled with ammunition and weapons. John noted dismally that Cameron was still laid out exactly where they'd left her on the couch.

"You get everything?" Sarah demanded without even looking at him.

"Yeah, I think," John nodded as he placed the messenger bag next to his own backpack on the floor and approached Cameron again.

He balanced precariously on the edge of the cushion beside her, reaching out to run his fingers lightly across her pale cheek. Cameron's beautiful face had been blessedly untouched by the flames, and aside from a few tiny cuts, was relatively unmarked. The skin of her cheek was as soft as he remembered it being just days before when he'd stroked her there after he replaced her CPU, almost willing her to wake up by using his touch as a beacon to return to him. But then, as now, she'd been cold, her usual warmth usurped because of what she'd done for him.

The hand that'd been caressing her smooth cheek instantly doubled into a fist at the thought. First, Cameron allowed him to cut out her CPU—essentially her brain—simply because he'd asked her to, and what thanks had she gotten from him? Having him coldly say that she had no soul and never would. Now she was burned and broken on the couch before him because she'd been going to buy him a birthday cake. If it hadn't been for him giving her that stupid, self-indulgent speech about the importance of his birthday she never would've gotten into the Jeep to buy him a damn cake in the first place, and she'd be perfectly fine right now. This was all his fault.

John was so angry with himself that he couldn't see straight. He wanted to punch himself right in the face for how he'd treated her. Everything Cameron had ever done had been for him and he constantly told her she was a freak for it or condemned her as being the very thing that he and his mother had been fighting to destroy for as long as he could remember.

True, Cameron was a machine—a Terminator—created by Skynet specifically for the purpose of taking human life, but from the very beginning John could tell that she was fundamentally different from any Terminator he'd ever known. Not just because she was there to save his life, the T-800 that'd been sent back to protect him before had never come anywhere even remotely close to being as human as Cameron was from day one.

As pathetic as it might sound, the T-800 that he'd dubbed "Uncle Bob" was as close to a father as John had ever known during the entire first twelve years of his life—and he'd only been around for two days, give or take. So for him to say Cameron had surpassed his surrogate father in terms of humanity, John had to really mean it.

And he did.

His relationship with Cameron was difficult to categorize and rocky at best, but he still cared for her deeply, and he thought she at least saw him as more than just the teenage boy she'd been assigned to protect. Why else would she have been so nice to him when she didn't have to? Or touched him as often as she did?

The memory of her fingertips lightly sliding along the back of his neck as she'd walked by immediately replayed in his mind. While it'd been a subtle, small gesture on her part—that also had occurred almost two months ago, back when they'd just moved to California—that one simple touch had evoked a myriad of emotions from him. Surely comforting him physically wasn't something she'd been programmed with. Although in light of what he'd gleaned from Vick's chip about just how far a Terminator could take playing human, John was unsure of how he should view Cameron's actions anymore.

Did she genuinely have something akin to emotions of her own? Could she perhaps be fostering the same feelings toward him that he knew he possessed for her? Or was she just a Terminator that was quite successfully mimicking human behavior so that she could get the desired results from him? And if she was, what the holy-hell could those results possibly be?

God, he was going to go crazy thinking about this…

No, he was not going to become his mother or his uncle and drive himself up the wall with a bunch of unfounded paranoid delusions. Whatever Cameron's agenda was, she'd been sent here by John himself—albeit approximately twenty years into the future—to protect him and that was all that mattered. If he was uncertain about trusting Cameron, he could at least trust himself, right?

John glanced down at Cameron as though she could provide all the answers to his contemplations. But her glazed over eyes simply stared past him, and he found no other sign of life in her at all. John plunged his fingers into his shaggy, dark brown hair and raked them roughly over his scalp in an attempt to alleviate some of his frustration. He turned to his mother and saw her still staring out the window, completely focused on her self-appointed task. She probably didn't even know he was in the room with her—although he sincerely doubted it. His mother made a point of knowing as much about where he was and what he was doing as possible. In fact, John was absolutely certain that if Sarah could, she would've slapped a LoJack on him a long time ago so she could know his whereabouts every hour of the day.

Moving himself into a more comfortable position on the lumpy couch, John fixed his gaze back on Cameron once again. With a tenderness he didn't even know he possessed, he brushed some errant locks of her dark hair away from her face, allowing himself a few moments to revel in the silky texture of the long strands as they slid across the pads of his fingers. Before he even realized what he was doing, he moved his hand down and traced lightly over her lips, almost like Vick had done to Barbara Chamberlain in that video, but differently. This action wasn't about manipulating her into doing something he wanted her to do, John simply wanted to know if her mauve lips were as soft as they looked.

They were.

He had no idea if he should be oddly comforted or deeply disturbed by that fact. Once his fingertips made contact with her lips, it was as if he couldn't pull away. His thumb gently swept across her bottom lip, following its full, smooth curve all the way to the corner, then moving up to the perfect arch of her upper lip. Instinctively, he learned their contours and committed them to memory. Even if he never got this close to Cameron ever again, he would always remember exactly how her lips felt against his skin.

When he finally managed to remove his fingers from her intoxicatingly soft lips, he was almost disappointed to not see her head adorably quirked to the side as she watched him with obvious interest and curiosity. For some reason, John thought that if he touched her long enough she'd wake up. That she'd come back to him as she had before. Sort of like Sleeping Beauty, a simple brush of his skin against hers and she'd awaken. Wait, the guy kissed the girl in that story, right? John didn't really know, most of the stories his mother had read him as a kid were not of the warm and fuzzy variety—thus why he'd often endured some very disturbing nightmares as a child.

So maybe if he kissed her… John would not even let that line of thought continue.

One, it was ridiculous—Cameron was an injured Terminator, a kiss wasn't going to repair whatever damage she'd sustained. And two, his mother would turn around and kill them both before any miraculous "healing" could occur. But the thought managed to wedge itself in his mind and refused to leave, regardless of how absurd it sounded. His eyes, just a shade darker than his mother's, locked on Cameron's lips. He knew how soft they were now, but he still had no idea how they would taste. Maybe if he just stole one quick peck his mother would never notice…

Embarrassment rushed through him at the thought. Cameron was badly injured and unconscious and here he was trying to think of a way to kiss her? John felt like the worst kind of pervert in that moment. He scooted as far away from her small frame as he could without falling off the couch so that he wouldn't be tempted to go ahead and kiss her anyway, despite what his conscience told him.

He busied himself with smoothing down the scorched hem of her shirt, pointedly ignoring the jagged piece of steel sticking out from the middle of her abdomen. The garment had ridden up high on her stomach when they carried her inside, revealing a patch of milky-white skin that was almost begging him to touch it. John put a few more inches between them just to be safe and stared at her again.

He hated just sitting here idly, waiting for either Cameron to awaken or Derek to show up with a car. He should be doing something to help. But what could he do? He had no idea what the hell was wrong with Cameron and knew even less about how to fix it, so anything he did might cause more harm than good to her. So John did the only thing he could think to do. He lifted her arm that dangled off the couch then tenderly took her small hand in his own. John brought her limp hand to his lips and brushed a feather-light kiss across her knuckles, mumbling an apology thickly against her soft skin. He inched closer to her, seemingly content to just run his thumb across her knuckles until he had the opportunity to do something more to help her.

While John sat with her, he didn't notice the minute flash of blue light deep within Cameron's brown eyes. The spark was weak and erratic, but a sure sign of life.

Absolute awareness returned to the cyborg's mind in a flood of data. With cold, canny precision the Terminator calmly appraised her situation in less than a second.

**ENDOSKELETON INTEGRITY: 96.08%**

**CPU DIAGNOSTIC: FULLY OPERATIONAL**

**MAIN POWER CELL CAPACTITY: 97.01%**

**SECONDARY POWER CELL CAPACITY: 75.26%**

**CIRCUITRY ANALYSIS: DAMAGE TO CIRCUITS RUNNING FROM MAIN POWER CELL HAS RENDERED MAIN POWER CELL INACCESSIBLE AT THIS TIME. AN ALTERNATE POWER SOURCE IS ESSENTIAL TO REMAIN OPERATIONAL. REPAIRS REQUIRED TO AVOID EVENTUAL TERMINATION. **

In the moment before she collapsed, Cameron had been aware of the damage to her main power cell and had already begun the search for a new source of energy to keep herself operational. But unfortunately she'd been unable to access the new supply before her CPU shut down and she went into an energy saving mode. She was now running on the last vestiges of power left in her system from that mode.

Cameron had approximately ten seconds of power left to access the new energy supply before she shut down indefinitely. Static wreaked havoc on her main display, but she ignored it.

**ACTION: REROUTE CIRCUITRY… ALTERNATE POWER… ACCESS SECONDARY POWER CELL…**

Those three simple commands flashed before a schematic of her circuits, and then her menu screen lit up as life-giving power surged back into her mechanical limbs.

John felt Cameron's hand lightly squeeze his own, and jerked his head toward hers in disbelief. He heard the faint whir of her servos and gears as her eyes widened before she lifted her head to look at him.

"Are you injured?" she asked immediately.

He stared at her with his mouth bobbing unintelligibly for a moment before getting over the shock of her being suddenly awake and talking to him. He swallowed down the lump that'd formed in his throat and released her hand quickly.

"No, Cameron. I'm fine," he answered her in a raspy voice then turned his head away to hide the rising blush that stained his cheeks.

She'd just been in a massive explosion and all she cared about was if he was safe. John didn't think he'd ever get used to the single-minded devotion of a Terminator.

Satisfied that John was unharmed, Cameron then turned her gaze toward the injury to her torso. She raised the hand that John had placed beneath the wound, then after a few seconds of inspection, wrapped her hand around the jagged metal protruding from her stomach and twisted it sharply to the side. John watched in mute horror as she proceeded to slowly pull it out of her body, the screeching sound of metal grating against metal filling the room as she did so. Cameron brusquely dropped the chunk of metal onto the floor a moment later then maneuvered herself up into a sitting position.

John lifted the fragment off the floor and turned it over in his hands in disbelief, staring fixedly at the mixture of blood and oil coating the sides of the charred metal.

"What happened?" Sarah demanded as she strode over to the duo.

"A man. Caucasian, late thirties, brown hair, slight build, average height. Probable identity: the man behind the counter at the Internet Café. He was walking away from the Jeep when it exploded. Given my injuries and the damage to the vehicle, I believe he attached an explosive to the undercarriage—possibly C4 or an equivalent high explosive—with a trigger on the ignition switch," Cameron stated in a monotone as she rose to her feet.

"That's great, but I meant just now. Why were you shut down for so long? You said your system automatically reboots after 120 seconds, and it's been about five minutes since you went down," Sarah continued as she cast an accusatory glance towards the robot.

Cameron stared at Sarah with an expression strangely akin to annoyance on her face, then answered in an ultra calm voice, "A piece of shrapnel from the Jeep punctured my torso and lodged in my endoskeleton. Normally, steel would not harm me at all, but with the force and velocity it gained from the blast, it was able to penetrate my hyperalloy combat chassis. The circuits running from my main power cell were damaged and I shut down to conserve power while a system diagnostic was performed to determine an appropriate alternative power source."

John and Sarah just stared at her for a long moment after she finished her monologue, unsure of what to say next since neither of them had particularly understood any of what Cameron had just said.

"So…does that mean you're going to be okay now?" John asked after a few seconds of thought.

"I require repairs, but I will remain operational with my existing power source for approximately 46.71 hours," Cameron stated as she walked toward the television, using the reflective surface of the screen to appraise the superficial injuries to her face and neck.

"That's good, I guess…" John muttered, still unable to tear his gaze away from Cameron.

Sarah turned back to the window, face grim as she looked for some sign of Derek. She hoped John didn't notice the panic that was beginning to creep over her; Derek should've been back by now with a car, and while the fire department and the police had not yet arrived—which she thought was strange, but was still immensely thankful for that fact—they'd show up eventually. She took a deep breath and tried to keep up her calm façade, because Sarah knew that if she allowed herself to lose her cool now, she'd only put John in more danger than they were already in.

At that moment, the sound of screeching tires filled the air. A black Chevrolet SUV skidded to a stop in front of the house; the driver side window rolled down a second later then Derek struck his head out and shouted, "Let's go!"

Sarah grabbed the duffel bag off the floor and slung it onto her back over one shoulder, then motioned for John and Cameron to go ahead. John nodded quickly then snatched his backpack and strode toward the door, with Cameron a few steps behind him, pulling on her messenger bag as she went. Sarah exited the house last, shotgun still in hand, providing cover to her son as though she expected an attack at any second. High-pitched screams greeted the appearance of her weapon as the neighbors that'd ventured outside to investigate the source of the explosion all ducked back into the protection of their homes.

Once John and Cameron had piled into the backseat and Sarah had hopped into the passenger side of the large vehicle, Derek immediately sped off, swerving through the residential area at breakneck speeds with all the precision of a NASCAR driver. Sarah abandoned her shotgun on the floorboard then turned in her seat and unceremoniously thrust a Glock 19 handgun toward Cameron. She pulled her own Glock 30 from the duffel and chambered a round as she glanced into the rearview mirror to see if anyone was following them. John opened his bag and yanked out the gray hoodie he'd packed, offering it to the injured machine. She quirked her head to the side in contemplation as she regarded the garment, then turned her curious brown eyes up to him, brow slightly furrowed.

"To cover up your burns," John began, casting a meaningful glance at the patch of raw, blistered flesh on her right arm, "we can't attract attention, remember?"

Cameron nodded and replied as she reached for the thick cotton sweatshirt, "Thank you for explaining."

She pulled it on over her head, concealing the damage to her torso while leaving her beautiful face still exposed. John smiled at her response, normally it annoyed him—since she said it so often—but hearing her say anything at the moment was truly music to his ears. He'd come too close to losing her to care about her quirky mannerisms right now.

"Anyone behind us?" Derek demanded, taking the turn out of their subdivision and cutting off a sedan as he pulled onto the road.

"Nothing. No cops, no other cars…absolutely nothing," Sarah answered disbelievingly, slumping back in her seat beside him but keeping her eyes glued to the passenger side rearview mirror.

"You're sure?" Derek asked as he cast her a sidelong glance.

"I can't believe it either, but there's nothing back there," Sarah retorted, shaking her head and tossing her short, choppy black locks off her shoulders.

"What happened to the Tin-Can back there?" Derek questioned with a malicious twist of his lips as he jerked the wheel sharply to the side to pass a slower moving car.

"I sustained massive damages to the circuits running from my main power cell, but I was able to reroute my primary energy source to feed off of my secondary power cell. It is powered by the nuclear byproducts of my main power cell, so it will only stay operational temporarily until the damage to my primary circuits is repaired," Cameron deadpanned, eyes intently locked on the time-displaced soldier but her face remained impassive.

"In English anybody?" Derek inquired a minute later.

"She got blown up and was damaged. And at some point we're going to have to repair her," John supplied huffily, green eyes boring into his uncle's back.

He did not like the way Derek seemed almost disappointed that Cameron was up and around on her own again, and John had no qualms about letting his uncle know that his obvious disdain for the cyborg was very unappreciated at the moment.

The SUV finally made it onto the freeway and blended in with the late afternoon commuter traffic. Derek greatly reduced his speed at Sarah's behest to make them seem all the more inconspicuous. John found his eyes unconsciously drawn to Cameron every few minutes, making sure that she was still awake. He did _not _want to see her in that death-like state again if he could avoid it.

The Terminator systematically scanned the traffic around the vehicle, appraising all the other cars for even the slightest sign of a threat. She was aware of John's less-than covert glances, but didn't comment on them at the moment; now she was in full-on protector mode so any questions she had about human behavior could wait until John was out of harm's way.

Almost an hour later they were nearing the state lines. John had taken to staring out the window at the darkened world around him, a fist propped beneath his chin and one of his legs rapidly bouncing up and down in impatient frustration.

He wasn't an idiot, he knew that logically the best course of action with what'd just happened was flight, but just because he knew it was smart didn't mean he had to like it. Any sane person that'd just seen a vehicle they were supposed to have been in explode would know that the smartest plan would be to get the holy-hell out of Dodge before whoever had attempted to kill them, presumably Sarkissian from what Cameron had told them, could try again. But he'd spent too much of his life doing just what they were doing now, running, to be happy about doing it again. And John knew that this was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg with his mother and Derek calling the shots now.

Now that they were running, they'd never stop, and that meant all chances of a normal life for John Connor were shot to hell. So, needless to say, he felt that he'd earned himself the right to a "brooding teenage boy moment." He knew his mother's mind well enough to know with absolute certainty that no amount of begging or guilt he attempted to use on her would work in this situation. Sarah thought that their cover was obviously blown and that John's life was clearly at stake, so he might as well kiss "John Baum" and his new life good-bye and welcome back John Connor and living out of a car as they headed to wherever his mother deemed a "safe place."

Safe physically, without a doubt, but safe psychologically, definitely not.

His bright green eyes were jade daggers and his fingernails were bitten down almost to the point of bleeding when they finally stopped for gas at some beat-up station. Cameron offered to get it, since if attacked she'd stand the greatest chance of survival, but Sarah and Derek insisted they'd do it and that she'd protect John in the car.

The silence that descended after the two adults left seemed to have a physical weight only John could feel. He wanted to say something to Cameron but feared that if he opened his mouth he'd lash out at her in misplaced anger.

The cyborg's eyes intently scanned their surroundings and for a moment she truly resembled a moving surveillance camera. Her eyes would slowly shift from the right side of her peripheral vision and when they reached the left, her head would swivel just enough so that she could continue her 180-degree sweep of the area around them unhindered. For an instant, he vividly imagined the female Terminator mounted on the wall of a bank in lieu of a traditional surveillance camera. John stifled a chuckle at the visualization. Cameron's attention immediately snapped in his direction, eyes automatically assessing the source of the sound he'd just made. A moment later brown eyes met green, and Cameron dropped her gaze to the hem of John's borrowed sweatshirt. She attentively watched as her own manicured nails picked at a loose thread and had John not known any better he might've accused her of being uncomfortable.

Before he could comment on her unusual behavior, Cameron mumbled something.

"What?" John asked as he leaned across the backseat to hear her better.

"I said thank you," she replied in whisper so soft he could barely understand her.

"For what?" he questioned, brow scrunching in confusion.

"You didn't leave me. After the explosion…when I woke up, you were there with me," Cameron continued quietly, voice fervent with gratitude, as she finally lifted her beautiful brown eyes to his.

Swallowing the lump that'd formed in his throat at her unexpected confession, he responded just as softly, "You're welcome."

John almost leapt out of his skin when Derek roughly slammed the driver side door shut behind him and Sarah abruptly tossed half a dozen bags of junk food into the backseat proclaiming, "Here's dinner if you're hungry."

His cheeks burning a shade of crimson that rivaled the skin of a tomato, John immediately snagged a bag of potato chips and tore savagely into the plastic as Derek pulled away from the pump and parked the SUV behind the station. The younger man wasn't all that hungry, but maybe if he crammed his mouth full of food his mother wouldn't question him about how he reacted when they got back into the car.

Sarah, completely oblivious to John's uneasiness, passed Cameron two soft drinks since John was busy shoveling Doritos into his mouth at an alarming speed.

"John, slow down, you act like you haven't eaten in days. You'll choke yourself if you keep that up," Sarah reprimanded, face contorting in disgust.

The teenage boy stopped his frantic eating and popped the top on his can of Dr Pepper then washed down the crunchy mass he'd been working around in his mouth, wincing as the sharp edges of the chips grated against his throat. He was about to snap at his mother when he saw Cameron slip her hand slowly into the pile of bags Sarah had tossed into the backseat and retrieve a bag of beef jerky. John watched with rapt fascination as the machine, who'd rarely eaten more than two bites of any food in the entire time he'd known her, ripped the bag open and began to systematically devour its contents and casually sip her own drink, seemingly as reluctant to talk as he was.

He wiped the orange crumbs the chips had left on the corners of his mouth away with the back of his hand and gulped down the rest of his Dr Pepper, feigning interest in the nutrition facts printed on the back of the can to keep his eyes off of Cameron.

Derek watched the two younger occupants of the vehicle from the rearview mirror and didn't like what he was seeing at all, they looked like a couple of horny kids caught fooling around in the basement. But before he could call either of them on their awkward behavior, John noticed his uncle's watchful gaze and blurted out, "I gotta take a leak."

John practically threw himself out of the car and jogged toward the gas station's bathrooms. Derek's cold blue eyes locked on Cameron then and she, too, excused herself saying, "I should clean myself up, it would attract unnecessary attention for me to be walking around with dried blood all over my face."

The time-displaced soldier regarded the female Terminator suspiciously as she strode in the same direction as John, taking her messenger bag with her.

"Something's going on with those two," Derek deadpanned, turning to Sarah.

The woman focused an electric green glare on him, unable to speak past the water she'd just poured into her mouth. Once she swallowed, she raised one thick black eyebrow at him and practically growled, "Derek…shut up."

"Did you not see the look on John's face? He looked like he'd just gotten busted with his hand up her skirt or something," he continued incredulously, gesturing toward the gas station with both hands.

"Derek… I've already had one hell of a day and if you don't shut your mouth right now, I swear on everything holy, I will take out my gun and shoot you," Sarah calmly stated as though she were speaking to a small child then downed another sip from her bottled water and bit into a potato chip, the sharp snap of the chip between her teeth signaling the end of the conversation.

**A/N: **Ok, that's all for now! There's more, but I'm withholding it until I get some feedback on this thing. What? I'm not going to waste my time writing on this fic if nobody's gonna read it. Yes, I'm bitchy, blame it on lack of sleep and stress (fall semester is right around the corner…yay…back to college for me…). So, in short, review and let me know what you guys think of this thing. How do you like my version of John? And Cameron? I'm trying to make her more human w/o laying it on too thick, too fast. I'd like your opinion of Derek and Sarah, too, but John and Cameron are my primary concern.

Please review, I'm rather apprehensive about this fic. I began it right after the S1 finale but didn't post for months b/c I was "revising" (i.e., stalling b/c I couldn't decide if I liked it or if it was crap that wasn't worth posting).

Thanks for reading!

Sassy18


	2. Chapter Two: Map of the Problematique

**Stay**

**A/N: **Wow! I was definitely not expecting such a great reception of this fic! Well, since I did get quite a bit of positive feedback here I suppose y'all have earned an update, huh? Ask and ye shall receive… :-D Again, italics mean thoughts and bold sections in all caps means it's on Cameron's menu screen. I did have flashbacks labeled with italics and bold, but for some reason the site isn't allowing me to do so anymore, so I'll just have them be bold in the text from now on. Sorry for any inconvenience, but there's not much else I can do…

**Disclaimer: **I was unable to become a multi-millionaire overnight and buy the rights to Terminator or T:SCC, so I still don't own T:SCC, or any of the characters therein, they continue to belong to James Cameron and Fox. Nor do I own the lyrics to the song "Map of the Problematique" by Muse. But I **do** own the DVD of S1, so there! ;-P

**Chapter Rating: **Mature (Language, sexual innuendos, and a Terminator committing a crime—but for a good cause.)

**Special Thanks: **I want to extend a gigantic amount of thanks to all my lovely reviewers, as well as favorites and alerts people! Please continue to review, and to those who have not yet reviewed, drop me a line and let me know what you think! Reviews and the like are what oil the machine for us writers! :-D

**Favorite Story:** Rixzel, curlytopkristi, lasair8, Alana84, xXPrettyDisturbedXx, shaqieshaq, purpledragonfly74, Darkened Ruby, archetype, Dirt Rider 712, and Devil2Kyuubi.

**Author Alert:** PHANTOM RANGER, curlytopkristi, timkhj, snampeg, and JovialShogun.

**Story Alert:** Amiele, ColtBoyd, Dirt Rider 712, Falcon-Rider, Fuzzy Eared, Hawkehunt, Hinotima24, L'anana, MelodyRosewater, Pinellas62, SecretStrangeAngel, The Alternative Source, TheAngelPandora, Tpolich, TrapedSoul, brown-eyed-girl 14, curlytopkristi, darkshadowarchfiend, inuyasharbd15fan09, novageek, purpledragonfly74, .lover, sh0gun, tanza, tinkbaby, and xanthos.

**Favorite Author:** curlytopkristi, snampeg, and Dirt Rider 712.

**Reviewers:** King Steve, Tpolich (thanks for the tips about bettering John's characterization), Tom 67, mattieaway, curlytopkristi, ColtBoyd, tanza, Tanya13, Falcon-Rider, Alana84, xXPrettyDisturbedXx, Looking for Inspiration, Sunshine-M, Dark-Syaoran, JovialShogun, The Alternative Source, SecretStrangeAngel, Dirt Rider 712, darkshadowarchfiend, delkolover138, and TrapedSoul.

**Written While Under the Influence of: **Shakespeare Sister-Stay, Muse-Map of the Problematique, White Zombie-More Human Than Human, AFI-Prelude 12/21, Rob Zombie-Living Dead Girl, Christina England Hale-Ave Maria, Brad Fiedel-Love Scene (from Terminator), NIN-Physical, NIN-Closer, Avenged Sevenfold-The Beast and the Harlot, Shirley Manson-Samson and Delilah, James Carrington-Ache, Rolling Stones-You Can't Always Get What You Want, Anberlin-Paperthin Hymn, Muse-Apocalypse Please, Moby-Why Does My Heart Feel So Sad, Brooks and Dunn-My Heart is Lost to You, Tim McGraw-The Cowboy in Me, Jack White and Alicia Keys-Another Way to Die, Buckcherry-Rescue Me, Lifehouse-Whatever It Takes, Christina Aguilera-Keeps Getting Better, Meredith Brooks-Bitch, Screaming Trees-Look At You, Neurosonic-Fearless, and Evans Blue-The Pursuit.

**Chapter Two: Map of the Problematique**

**Fear**

**And the panic in the air**

**I want to be free**

**From desolation and despair**

**And I feel **

**Like everything I sow**

**Is being swept away**

**Well I refuse to let you go**

The dingy biohazard that passed for a men's room at the gas station wasn't exactly high on John's list of places where he wanted to spend an extended amount of time, but with the increasingly confusing turns his life had taken outside of the tiny room, he was seriously considering hiding out in there for as long as possible. Hell, he'd don a hazmat suit right now and clean the entire dump for free if it meant he could postpone the verbal lashing he was one hundred percent certain his uncle was cooking up for him in the SUV.

John didn't know how much his uncle had ascertained about the tense atmosphere in the vehicle when the time-displaced soldier and Sarah returned from filling up the gas tank, but the tension between the younger man and Cameron had been utterly palpable. The sparks flying between them in that moment before Derek interrupted should've been enough to make the entire gas station erupt into a blazing inferno.

At least it'd felt that way for _John…_

He had no idea if Cameron had experienced anything even remotely similar to what he had and the continual chaos she seemed to oh-so-effortlessly and completely unconsciously inflict upon his thoughts was slowly driving him insane. And there was no perceptible bit of insight on the horizon for him as to just where the hell he and Cameron stood now. He supposed he could just ask, but he could all too clearly imagine how infinitely more awkward things would become when she turned those fathomless brown eyes up to him in a blank stare and then calmly asked him to explain his feelings _for_ her to _her_. And with the ridiculously interminable streak of bad luck that seemed to follow John around like a lost puppy, there wasn't a single doubt in his mind that that'd be _exactly_ how things would go if he did ask.

John had never been more confused or frustrated in his life and was certain he'd be well on his way to a padded cell if things continued like this. Taking a deep gulp of air into his lungs and trying vainly to calm himself, he vividly remembered the very much alive expression the object of his contemplations had fixed him with just minutes earlier when they were all alone in the backseat of the stolen SUV.

For one blinding second he'd been utterly convinced Cameron was much more human than he'd given her credit for. The emotions he'd seen churning beneath that warm, chocolate brown gaze were too earnest, too intense to be a mechanical recreation of a human feeling. In that moment it'd taken every last ounce of restraint for John to not reach out and run his fingers across the pale, perfectly smooth expanse of her cheek, then down to trace lightly over her lips. Then he would've allowed his fingers to continue beneath her chin to gently guide her face upward so that he could lean in and…

John turned stiffly to the sink and wrenched the one remaining knob around until the water poured out of the faucet full blast. He cupped his hands underneath the flow and splashed some cold water on his face then glared at his reflection in the grimy, shattered mirror on the dusty brick wall directly in front of him, hands bracing his weight against the dirty metal sink.

Why was it so hard for him to admit to himself that whatever it was he was feeling for Cameron was totally one-sided and just get over it? She was a **machine**. Not some beautiful adolescent girl with a thing for the dark and brooding guy from her chemistry class, but a cold, calculating, mechanical killer that just happened to look like a supermodel and was assigned to protect him with her very life. John sincerely tried to prevent the broad grin that always spread across his face whenever he thought of her devotion to him from forming, but to no avail. For some reason, the depth of her commitment to keeping him safe made him happy. He knew it was sick, but the knowledge that, at least on some level, he was as important to her as she was to him was comforting.

"God, I'm gonna need _so _much therapy…" John muttered, yanking a brown paper towel out of the battered metal dispenser and scrubbing it hard across his dripping face.

Taking a deep breath and steeling himself for whatever fate awaited him in the black SUV, he stepped out of the restroom and started toward the vehicle in the slow, shambling gait of a man condemned, all the while envisioning Cameron's soulful brown eyes staring back at him.

XXX

Cameron dropped the now ruddy with blood paper towel into the garbage can of the ladies' room, then began methodically examining the damage to the synthetic epidermis of her face in the mirror. The cuts to her forehead and cheeks were purely superficial and would be completely healed within the next twelve hours—the speed of the healing was due to the protein she'd ingested from the beef jerky, as food greatly increased her body's already heightened ability to heal—but she still had to cover the bits of shining endoskeleton peeking out from beneath her flesh until then.

Opening a small compact, she applied a layer of concealer and foundation to the metal, effectively hiding her less-than-human status. When finished she tilted her head slightly from side to side, ensuring that the makeup was doing its job and she looked absolutely human from every possible angle. Satisfied that she looked normal, a little beat-up but normal, she started toward the door and then stopped short.

Her gaze focused on the tangled brown hair hanging in a wild, dark halo around her face. The urge to take the extra—and wholly unnecessary—step to continue to work on fixing her outer appearance completely overwhelmed her for a moment. And before she even made a conscious decision to do so, her right hand had already removed a small hairbrush from her messenger bag and her left had shifted the majority of her hair to one side of her neck so she could more easily reach the gnarled strands. As she eased the bristles through her wayward and knotted tresses, her eyes fell once more upon her reflection in the mirror.

She couldn't stop thinking about what'd happened between her and John in the SUV before Derek interrupted them. Cameron may've been a machine, but—contrary to popular belief—that didn't make her entirely unperceptive to emotional atmospheres. She remembered with the perfect clarity of the most advanced and analytical mind in the world the growing intensity of John's gaze as he stared at her, both of them still slightly shocked by her unanticipated thank you.

Even now Cameron was unsure as to why she'd felt such immeasurable gratitude and admiration to John for not simply leaving her where she'd fallen after the explosion and taking care of himself. Had she been able to, Cameron would've advised him to have done exactly that in the situation. She'd been damaged to the point where she was no longer an asset but a liability, and John couldn't afford to put himself in danger to protect her, a machine, of all people.

So why did it…_please…_her so much that he'd done just that? Put himself in danger to protect her?

Cameron knew it couldn't have been an easy decision for him to make, neither Sarah nor Derek would've encouraged him to help her; their invariably negative reaction to aiding her was a foregone conclusion painfully obvious even to her. The two older humans hated her; well _Derek_ hated her, while Sarah probably vacillated between extreme annoyance on a daily basis to grudging tolerance whenever Cameron proved useful as either a battering ram or a convenient shield.

But no, instead of reproaching John for risking his own safety for hers and then explaining to him how she was expendable in comparison to him, she'd thanked him—in essence encouraging him to do something like that again. Frustrated with her own inconsistency, Cameron raked the brush so roughly through her hair that it crackled and half a dozen strands pulled free from her scalp, a frown turning down the corners of her mouth.

Cameron had always known that her life was unimportant, she was a tool—as essential as a loaded gun or a hand grenade—nothing more, but yet in that moment when the explosion tore through the Jeep, the flames enveloping her and burning her, she'd felt the first stirrings of emotions that were totally foreign to her.

Fear and regret.

She'd never before feared for her own life. She'd almost perpetually been filled with concern for John whenever she wasn't at his side and her fear for him immediately after the explosion had sky-rocketed, but this time it'd been joined by a mirrored emotion for herself.

She did not…_want_…to die.

But despite that fact, her menu screen had exploded with an amalgam of statistics and warnings all amounting to one inescapable conclusion: **TERMINATION IMMINENT**. Her limbs were weak, the power rapidly flowing out of them, leaving them hanging limply at her sides, utterly useless. Sparks flew from her damaged circuits, sealing her fate with every brilliant spark of life that leapt away from her. And that was when the fear attacked her, sending an acrid, palpable shiver down her spine as she resigned herself to the inevitable. She was as good as dead…

But then she heard John's voice…calling her name…drawing her back to him…

The anxiety and uncompromising loyalty that imbued his tone, combined with her own terror, fortified her resolve and Cameron had suddenly felt the strength and determination return to her. An instant later, she'd propelled her body—injured as it was—out of the burning wreckage that'd only moments prior been the Jeep and away from the fire licking hungrily at her flesh.

It was his voice that shook her out from beneath the veil of apathy that'd come over her and forced her away from the abyss of nothingness that awaited her. His voice that'd brought her back from the brink… She'd always come back for that voice… Always for _him_.

She'd latched onto the glimmer of hope his voice offered her like a lifeline and used his obstinate confidence in her to bring a different version of events into being through sheer force of will. Cameron Phillips would _not_ die today. She forced her sluggish systems to use the last vestiges of power left within her to search for a solution, any solution, that'd save her from oblivion. Save her so she could continue to protect him.

John needed her and she would _not_ fail him. _Ever._

Her salvation had presented itself in the form of a risky and extremely temporary solution, rerouting the flow of power in her circuits to feed off her secondary power supply. But Cameron didn't care about the hazards this action would expose her to; she'd do whatever was necessary to survive and keep him safe.

Shaking off the unsettling memories, Cameron tried to justify to herself the fear she'd felt as merely being part of her mission to protect John. Her entire existence was based off of that one fundamental rule: protect John Connor. So it'd obviously upset her if she failed at her sole purpose in life, right? Since her life was of no consequence without his, it only made sense that she wouldn't want to be unsuccessful at the one thing that gave her life meaning.

While being true, the fact that John's safety was the most important thing to her, it wasn't the only reason she'd been afraid to die. And Cameron was too smart to fool even herself with any of the entirely logical explanations her mind was presently concocting for her errant feelings.

She…_liked_…being here.

She liked to be around these fascinating and utterly confusing people who so often did things for little to no reason at all. Especially John. The processes of his mind were so complex and intriguing that her inherent curiosity was in a state of perpetual pique when he was around.

Why did he seem to trust her so much at certain times and yet at others not at all? Why did he defend her when Derek accused her of leading Vick to the safe house and keeping his CPU for less than innocent reasons? Why had he been so physically attentive to her after he replaced her chip? Why had he been holding her hand when she awoke on the couch after the explosion?

All these questions and dozens more relentlessly ran through her mind without even the slightest inkling of an answer presenting itself whenever she wasn't preoccupied with something pertinent to her mission. And just the mere implication that she'd be forced to leave all of that behind if she died had fostered a fierce, unreasoning fear deep within her.

The sensation of regret had also been highly disturbing. She regretted that there was so much she'd yet to do or experience. There were thousands of things she was interested in, the majority of which also centered around John. She regretted that she'd yet to grasp even half of the strange and completely incomprehensible sensations he sent surging through her body with a few words, a gesture, or just a look…like before in the car.

Her stomach instantly felt tight and her cheeks flared with a faint blush as she imagined the way his eyes had looked. The usually jade green color of his irises had darkened nearly to evergreen when he fixed them intently on her, piercing her through with an intensity and severity that caused wave after wave of strong and confusing emotions to go crashing through her.

With a frustrated sigh, Cameron ended her introspection and resigned herself to the fact that her hair looked as close to normal as it was going to get for the moment. She replaced the brush back in her bag but then her fingertips touched a small tube of Chapstick and she unthinkingly fished it out. Holding the tube before her face and feeling that same odd compulsion to work more intently than necessary to improve her physical appearance, she contemplated the small object for a moment.

Her lips were dry and slightly chapped from the intense heat of the fire and could probably use something to soothe the irritated skin. Less than a second later she was applying the lightly tinted balm to her lips. When she finished she examined the perceptible difference her efforts had made to her appearance then turned on her heel and strode to the door, a self-satisfied flounce adding itself involuntarily to her movements.

Walking in her usual half-stomp, half-saunter manner toward the SUV, she yanked open the door on the right side of backseat and slipped effortlessly into her spot. Her eyes instantly went to John, instinctively checking every inch of him for even the slightest sign of an injury, but instead of finding his eyes already on her as per usual, the teenage boy kept his gaze unwaveringly focused on the back of the headrest in front of him. Cameron's head tilted to the side in an unconscious gesture of deep thought for the machine as she tried to decipher the meaning of why he didn't even glance in her direction. His jaw was clenched shut and his hands were curled into tight fists atop his knees as he sat rigidly beside her.

It…_bothered_…her that he didn't look at her. Both because it was out of character for him not to and because she genuinely…_liked…_it when he looked at her—not to mention how it undermined all the added effort she'd just put into improving upon her appearance. She fought back with some difficulty the pout forming on her face at his aloof behavior. The sensation that came over her when he focused those vividly green eyes of his on her confused her as much as it pleased her. There was nothing in her programming about protecting him that should give her pleasure; this was a job she'd been ordered to perform, not something she chose to do, but in spite of that fact, John's intense gaze never failed to send swirls of delight through her system.

"What happened, Tin-Can? Did ya fall in or did you find the tampon dispenser so completely fascinating that you just _had _to stop and play twenty-questions with the clerk about it?" Derek asked sarcastically, drawing Cameron's attention away from John.

"Are you inquiring about my menstrual cycle? Cybernetic organisms do not menstruate, so I would have no need for feminine hygiene products of that sort. But thank you for your concern," Cameron replied earnestly.

A snicker escaped both Sarah and John at the Terminator's unintentionally funny response. Derek's lips twisted into an irritated grimace as he threw the SUV into gear and backed out of his parking spot then sped toward the highway. Cameron turned her attention back to John and was pleased to find him attempting to surreptitiously watch her from the corner of his eye; his jaw had relaxed ever so slightly and his body had lost some of its stiff posture with the brief moment of levity.

The machine allowed herself to sink back into the seat and continue her constant vigilance of the outside world, oblivious to the ghost of a smile tipping up the corners of her mouth.

XXX

"Moth balls, corn syrup, ammonia, flares, duct tape, needle nose pliers, and a first-aid kit? Man, are you having one _wild_ Friday night…" the clerk at the 24-hour Mega-Mart muttered sarcastically as he scanned John's purchases.

John swallowed the comment he had in mind about how coming from a grease-faced, acne-removal cream advertisement before-picture poster child that really hurt, but allowed his face to contort into an annoyed glower instead. He dumped a crumpled wad of bills onto the counter, accepted his change, then yanked the plastic bags off the counter and stalked outside to the waiting vehicle. He climbed into the backseat wordlessly and dropped the bags behind the seat where half a dozen others were already sitting.

"You get everything on your list?" Derek questioned tersely without even turning to look at his nephew.

"Yeah, did you?" John retorted carefully, controlling the amount of venom coating his words; Derek hadn't yet broached the subject of what'd happened between the teenage boy and Cameron when they were left alone earlier and the last thing John wanted to do was incite him into doing so prematurely.

"Of course I did. A trained monkey could walk into a store, find the stuff written on a list, and get back out, no problem. So I'm pretty sure we can all handle that…" Derek scoffed, voice oozing sarcasm,"with maybe the exception of the defective femme-bot," he tacked on the end as an afterthought.

John bit down hard on his tongue to keep the instinctive impulse to defend Cameron against his uncle's animosity in check.

_Do not provoke him, John. Do not get that ball rolling, you know you'll regret it when Hurricane Derek gets going on the subject of you and Cameron, so just sit back and take it…for now._ John told himself as he shifted in his seat and pointedly looked out the window instead of responding to the bait his uncle had just thrown his way.

He was going for the 'eternally pissed off teenager annoyed with pretty much anything and everything around him' vibe as he feigned interest in the desert sky off in the distance. He hoped Derek wouldn't take advantage of the fact that the two of them were now alone to address what John knew his uncle had wanted to talk about ever since the teenager had returned to the SUV at the gas station. And John actually was annoyed to tell the truth.

More so with the situation with Cameron, having to leave "home" again, and his uncle's antics than with the fact that they'd been bouncing all over this dusty border town for the last two and a half hours. The four of them had been gathering the supplies necessary to repair Cameron as well as to increase their arsenal of explosives—John grimaced at the thought of spending the entire night making a batch of plastique yet _again—_at various locations so as to not arouse suspicion by buying everything in one place.

But John hoped Derek would interpret his irritated expression as having to do with the more petty aspects of their current situation and mercifully leave him be rather than invoke the torrent of his teenage complaints. Thankfully for him, Derek silently started up the SUV a moment later and maneuvered out into the empty street, headed toward the Quick-E-Mart where they'd left Sarah and Cameron fifteen minutes before.

XXX

Cameron walked down the aisle of the store, keenly aware of the security camera positioned in the corner of the room and deliberately keeping herself always on the periphery of the lens' range so that she was a scarcely distinguishable blur at the very edge of the screen. The little blue basket on her arm was filled with mostly hygiene products—toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, etc.—as well as more of what Sarah called "junk food" since they didn't want to run the risk of being recognized that going to a restaurant entailed as they headed to Mexico in the morning.

As she stepped into the next aisle, her eyes fell on a rack of candles and she stopped dead in her tracks as a wave of déjà vu came over her. Quirking her head to the side, she tried to discern why those candles—that were way too small to be of much use for anything—seemed so familiar. Cameron reached out and pulled a diminutive package of red-and-white striped candles off the rack and skimmed over the words printed on the front.

_Birthday Candles_, the tiny off-white box's label read.

Her eyes widened as realization dawned in her mind; she'd been going to buy John a birthday cake when the Jeep had exploded. She very seriously doubted Sarah or Derek were in the mood or even thinking of continuing with the plans for the customary celebration of John's birthday, but she clearly remembered how important John had told her the day was to him and she resolved then to observe his birthday with him herself. But she didn't really know _what_ was supposed to be done with a birthday cake. John had mentioned eating one, but what did candles have to do with it?

And even if she wanted to get him a cake, where would she find one? She hadn't seen a single cake in any of the stores she and the others had been to that night.

At that very instant an image filled her mind: **Her handing John a cupcake with a single red-and-white striped candle sticking out of the center of it. **

"**Happy Birthday, John," the vision-Cameron said with a grin.**

**The vision-John smiled crookedly at her then leaned forward and blew out the tiny flame at the top of the wick.**

"**Thanks, Cam," he replied, his emerald eyes flashing with amusement. **

With a cautious glance toward the clerk—who was completely oblivious to her presence since he was staring intently at the pages of a magazine with the words "Playboy" emblazoned on the cover—she slipped the little box into her messenger bag and then headed to the aisle that held the pastries. Glad for the vivid, yet random inspiration that'd popped into her head.

XXX

The SUV finally lurched to a stop at a motel that'd seen better days just forty miles from the Mexican border and little more than twenty minutes after Sarah and Cameron had been picked up. The older woman turned in her seat and locked eyes with Derek just as he pulled into a parking space and killed the engine.

"Okay, it'd probably raise less suspicion if we pretended that we're here separately than if we're here together, right? If we've made the news they'll be looking for a family of three or four, not two groups of two," the raven-haired woman explained grudgingly, hating the words even as they passed her lips.

She saw a complaint on the horizon in Derek's eyes, but beat him to the punch before he had a chance to voice it, "I don't like it either, but we can't take any chances, so just shut the hell up and go with it."

Sarah then turned to her son and spoke the words that felt like the worst sort of blasphemy ever uttered, "John, take Cameron inside and get a room. Then once Derek and I get one, too, I'll bring you the supplies to get started on her repairs and some bombs, okay?"

John couldn't help the blush creeping up the back of his neck at the thought of spending the night alone in a motel room with Cameron and merely nodded to his mother in response, too shocked to give a verbal reply. He scrambled toward his door handle just as he heard the door on Cameron's side of the vehicle slam shut, the machine not needing any further instructions on the matter. The two younger members of the group hoisted their respective bags onto their shoulders and started across the lot to the motel, but before they got more than three feet from the automobile, Sarah stuck her head out the passenger side window of the SUV and shouted, "A room with _two_ beds, John!"

John's face flushed as red as a cherry and his entire body flinched in intense embarrassment as he gestured for Cameron to continue ahead of him into the motel, allowing him to lag a few steps behind her while he vainly attempted to quell the sudden urge to shoot himself in the head and put himself out of his own misery.

As she flopped back down into her seat with a huff, Sarah felt Derek's gaze on her face. "Don't even say it, okay? I don't wanna hear whatever perverse innuendo you have in mind about them being alone together. She's the best one to protect him in a fight and he's the only one with the ability—or desire—to fix her, so grit your teeth and bear it just for one night."

The words were almost as much for her own reassurance as his, but Derek only grimaced at her and folded his thick arms across his chest instead of answering, Sarah taking on a matching pose as they waited until John and Cameron had already gotten a room before they entered the seedy establishment themselves.

XXX

"We need a room," Cameron demanded bluntly as she strode directly up to the front desk, eyes intently boring into the salt-and-pepper haired man stationed behind it reading a newspaper.

The man's eyes widened in shock when he looked up and saw Cameron standing there then he turned his dazed gaze to John, almost as if to ask for verification as to whether the beautiful girl standing before him were real or not, but the shock instantly melted into a lewd smirk as he took in John's beet-red face.

"With two beds," John added quickly, feeling the flush on his face rocket up a shade darker as the man's bawdy grin widened even more.

The man wordlessly retrieved a key from the almost completely full rack behind him and responded, "Seventy-five dollars a night."

Cameron immediately extracted that amount from her messenger bag and placed the bills into the man's waiting palm. She took the proffered key into her other hand, marched back toward the door they'd just entered through, and strode resolutely outside. John muttered a quick thank-you to the man and turned on his heel to follow her, but his hasty retreat was interrupted when the man called out to him, "Hey, kid."

John turned back around, expression wary.

The man tossed a small, square foil-wrapped package at him and said simply, "Good luck. I get the feeling you're gonna need it."

John caught it in one hand then flipped the little package over and felt the blush travel all the way up to his ears—and probably underneath his hairline as well—as he read the word "Condom" printed on the front. Groaning internally, he gave the older man a derisive half-salute—ignoring the urge to make an entirely different hand gesture—then wandered outside, wishing more than anything for someone to fortuitously run him over in the parking lot and save him from further embarrassment.

XXX

Sarah watched uneasily from the passenger side rearview mirror as Cameron and John disappeared into the third room from the right on the second story of the building.

Taking a deep irritated breath, she yanked open her door and stomped towards the motel, tucking her Glock 30 into the back of her jeans along the way. She impatiently yanked down on the hem of her shirt as she walked to cover the hard metal grip of the weapon resting firmly against the small of her back, Derek falling into step behind her. She jerked open the glass door of the little motel office with so much force that she nearly smacked the future soldier right in the stomach with the handle, but—without even breaking stride—she entered the room and didn't cast so much as a backward glance his way just to check and see if he were okay.

_All right, little lady. I've had all the attitude I'm going to take off of you for one night. Kyle's girl or no Kyle's girl, this means war…_ Derek thought with a roguish grin, a wonderfully evil idea coming to mind.

She was absolutely going to kill him for this, but hell, if he was going to die, at least he was going to do it with one gigantic smile on his face. Derek was sure that somewhere, somehow Kyle was screaming warnings at his older brother right now, but since when did he take any of his kid brother's advice seriously?

Just as Sarah stopped before the counter, lips already twisting up into that vacuous smile she always used around normal people—the one she obviously intended to be personable, but came off as painfully forced and, in the soldier's opinion, damned creepy—Derek stepped scandalously close to her side, violating the parameters of the unspoken no-man's-land she always kept around herself, and casually tossed one arm around her shoulders. Mouth gaping wide in shock, Sarah stared up at Derek like a deer caught in the headlights. Not even attempting to restrain the smirk rapidly overtaking the rough, angular planes of his war-hardened face, the soldier turned to the man behind the desk and said in a voice brimming with barely contained amusement, "Excuse me, but me and the _wife_ need a room."

Sarah's shock instantly dissolved into fury and when Derek turned to see her facial expression, he was met with the all-too-familiar view of her burning green irises narrowed into slits and focused on his own frosty blue ones. Smirk deepening, he hugged Sarah tighter to his body then returned his attention to the other man and continued, "She's so tired from driving all day that she insisted we stop for the night before she'd go any further. But hopefully I can convince her to _perk up_ some once we get into a room. Isn't that right, honey?"

The blatant innuendo in his words wasn't lost on either of the other two occupants of the room; Sarah's eyes sparked with indignation while the old man's crinkled at the edges with humor.

"I don't know, _honey_. You've got a _long_ day ahead of you tomorrow and I think you're going to need all the _rest _you can get." The words were little more than an icy hiss through gritted teeth and Sarah's tone seethed with hostility as she went perfectly rigid with rage in his arms.

She turned her head sharply to the side and glared up at Derek, jaw clenched so hard Derek was certain he could hear her teeth grinding together behind her soft pink lips. Her venomous retorts didn't have any effect on him other than causing a derisive, shit-eating grin to firmly plaster itself across his face; arctic-blue eyes betraying his supreme delight at her fury as well as daring her to blow the cover she herself had suggested.

The man behind the desk suddenly dropped a key onto the counter, interrupting Sarah and Derek's latest staring match, and muttered, "A single is fifty dollars a night."

Without removing his other arm from Sarah's shoulders, Derek fished his wallet out of his jeans' back pocket. The second the older man's eyes drifted back to his abandoned newspaper on the desk, the time-displaced soldier distinctly felt Sarah's elbow dig none too gently into his ribs, a characteristically not-so-subtle demand on her part to have him release her. Wincing, Derek complied under the guise of having to use both hands to retrieve the aforementioned amount of money from his wallet.

Derek handed the cash over and reached for the key with one hand, the other discretely moving to lightly massage his tender ribs. Smiling with grim satisfaction at her small victory, Sarah beat him to it and snatched the key off the countertop then strode briskly outside, leaving Derek trailing behind her. His mouth twitched up into another smirk at the anger still emanating from her motions as she stalked back to the car for their luggage and other supplies.

His ribs were definitely going to bruise, but seeing Sarah Connor rise to a whole new level of pissed off had been more than worth the pain, Derek thought as his right hand continued to nurse the sore side of his abdomen.

XXX

Finally getting back to the Sports section in his newspaper, the old man sank back down into his chair, an amused chuckle slipping out from between his weathered lips as he thought about the two odd couples that'd just purchased rooms for the night. Both the women had seemed like spitfires, especially the second one. If he hadn't known any better, he would've thought she was about to take her husband's head off for implying they were about to go have sex in front of a stranger.

Another snicker slipped out as he thought about the teenage boy that'd come in with that little supermodel-in-training in tow. He almost felt a pang of sympathy for the poor kid, he obviously was in _way_ over his head and that girl had looked like she was absolutely going to eat him alive… Lucky bastard.

Smoothing out the crinkled paper and still laughing under his breath, he mused, "Must be something in the water…"

**A/N: **Okay, that's all for this installment! Sorry if it's not as good as the first, I had originally intended this chapter to be a bit longer and cover way more ground, but I've been in a bit of a writing funk lately and I just wanted to get this thing done and out there since I've had so many requests for an update. So I just went with some exposition and humor—which I hope y'all enjoyed John and Sarah's discomfort as well as Derek's antics, I know I did—instead of the full enchilada, at least until I get my groove back. Don't worry, the next one is sure to be a _very interesting_ chapter… Oh, what do you do with a injured Terminator, a teenage boy, and a cheap motel room…lol Hey, get your minds out of the gutter! I'm talking about repairs, of course! And shower scenes… Now do I have your attention? Lol

All right, y'all know the drill, please review for me and let me know if this was as colossal a disappointment as I fear it is. My writing style has just felt all out of sorts lately, blame my professors for assigning like 5 research papers for me to do all at once. But hopefully I'm just overreacting and y'all like this update as much as the first. Just three more days and I'm out of school till mid-January, so hopefully that'll cure me of my writing blues.

Thanks for reading!

Sassy18


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